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The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to explore the development of Jamaica’s maritime education and training (MET) curriculum within the local education context. In this research, the story of the development and sustainability of the local MET curriculum in its 40-year journey from 1980 to present (post 2020), as communicated by various maritime stakeholders and archival documents, is chronicled.

The study utilized a qualitative orientation and was an embedded single-case study in its design. The entire local MET institution community and those legislatively and operationally allied to its sustained viability constituted the general population of this study. Non-probability sampling techniques were used to arrive at a maximum variation sample. Three sources of data were used in this study: individual interviews, focus group discussions and documents.

The Jamaican (local) MET curriculum was the brainchild of local perspicacity that was empowered by international benevolence. It was developed to satisfy market demands that existed at the time of its inception. These market requirements of the maritime industry are what impacted the development of the local MET curriculum over four decades. Several other factors led to the sustained viability of the local MET curriculum. These included the ability of the local MET curriculum to meet direct market needs and maintain its fitness for purpose.

It is the view of the researcher that the findings of this study were limited by the fact that the voices of current students and employers from the four decades of the curriculum's existence are not represented in this initial study. The perspectives from these two sources would have broadened the description presented in this study.

This research has shown that specialized higher education (HE) institutions are better served in their business when they maintain a symbiotic relationship with the industry for which they are producing graduates.

The treatment of HE as a service industry has gained traction globally. This would suggest that ‘product placement' in specialized HE is important to the growth, development and longevity of that course of study within the society in which it exists.

There is a dearth of national research on Jamaica's four-decades-old MET curriculum and the elements that lend to the sustained viability of same. This discussion of sustainability of the MET curriculum will benefit maritime educators and policymakers, who must continue to hone this curriculum so that it is fit for purpose. The study will also identify some of the elements of a sustainable, specialized HE curriculum. The elements identified herein can serve as exemplars and conceptual starting points for other contexts where the discussion of the sustainability of curriculum needs to be had.

This research tries to find the blockchain-based resilience strategies that can help the supply chains of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to recover from the disruptions and work effectively in a resource-based view perspective.

Eight broad strategies and 32 sub-strategies are identified from the literature review. Delphi study was carried out, and detailed discussion with 16 experts helped in finalizing these strategies. Further, the best-worst method (BWM) prioritized these strategies.

The findings suggests that “building social capital,” improving “coordination capabilities,” “sensitivity towards market,” “flexibility in process and production,” “reduction in process and lead time,”and “having a resource efficiency and redundancy” are the top strategies on which the top management should focus to overcome the situations of disruptions and enhance performance of MSMEs.

The blockchain-based strategies will enable the companies in tracing the products from the company to customers. Further, the customers will be able to identify their manufacturers, the raw materials used in manufacturing, and the life and quality of raw used materials. Altogether the textile industry will become more sensitive toward environmental practices.

The previous research has not identified and evaluated the blockchain-based resilience strategies, and therefore this study tries to fill this gap. This study used a smaller sample from the experts, so the results may vary if the larger data set is used and hypothesis testing can be done.

In the supply chain performance measurement (SCPM) there seems to be no consensus about measures for performance evaluation and suitable criteria from resilience and sustainability paradigms. In this way, this research aims to identify the attributes that a supply chain (SC) should follow to be resilient and sustainable, and then to evaluate their importance according to industry experts.

This study suggests a hybrid approach. The authors identified the most commonly used criteria using literature review, and then applied fuzzy Delphi technique (FDT) with the objective of surveying experts to find the attributes used in practice and asked to assess their relevance.

The resilient-sustainable supply chain (RSSC) is formed by four dimensions: resiliency, economic, environmental and social. A total of 15 criteria are identified, and the most important are visibility, flexibility, supply chain risk management (SCRM) culture, work conditions and communication.

This study used a literature review, so it is subject to a time frame, and the criteria could no longer be relevant as the time and business conditions change. Also, the findings may not be completely applicable throughout different industries, and therefore the finding cannot be replicated to other businesses.

This study will assist decision-makers among other interested parties to construct and/or strengthen an integrated SC that mixes resiliency and sustainability.

This study contributes to the state-of-art by producing a characterization of the resilient and sustainable supply chain for the automotive industry. Also, this research produces a new and holistic framework for resilient and sustainable SCPM supporting the decision-making process.

The purpose of this study was to explore how transport companies in Uganda execute strategies in a turbulent business environment.

The study adopted an exploratory qualitative methodology using the data collected through an open-ended instrument. Utilizing the qualitative data analysis software QSR NVivo9, the data were analyzed following the Gioia's methodology. Verbatim texts were used to explain the emergent themes.

The study's findings show that to successfully execute strategies, companies in Uganda communicate, coordinate and put control systems in their operations. The activities undertaken include customer care, timely settlement of complaints, comfortable seats, playing local music, partnerships with reliable fuel stations, setting up strategic offices, cost management, use of experienced drivers, sub-renting vehicles and inspections.

The study produces a pioneering result of how transport companies execute strategies in a turbulent business environment, an aspect that has not been adequately highlighted in previous studies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the amount of trust customers have in Somali Islamic banks. Furthermore, the role of gender in CSR activities and Islamic bank clientele is evaluated.

Throughout February and March 2022, 410 clients of Islamic banks in Somalia were surveyed using a questionnaire. The partial least squares approach and the structural equation model are applied to examine the data.

Findings indicate that all variables of CSR activities, such as social product, social legal, social needs, social environment and social employees’ responsibility, are influential and significant predictors of trust in Islamic banks in Somalia. Gender inequalities moderate the relationship between social product, social needs, social environment, social employee and trust. Conversely, only social legal responsibility was unaffected by gender differences in Somalia regarding people’s trust in Islamic banks.

A sample from a developing country such as Somalia is useful for shedding light on the outcomes of consumers’ perceptions of and trust in businesses’ CSR in the developing world. Furthermore, this study contributes to knowledge regarding CSR and how it can help the Islamic banking industry. Its findings will be useful to policymakers and regulatory bodies in the banking industry in their efforts to improve CSR.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical investigation of its kind about the understudied relationship among customer trust, CSR efforts and gender in Somalia context. Furthermore, it investigates how gender specifically moderates CSR in the Islamic banking sector in a developing country.

The paper examines contingent liabilities' effect on the firm's dividend decisions.

Fixed-effects regression and logit model results estimate the influence of contingent liabilities on firms' dividend decisions using a sample of 2,288 firm-year observations of S&P 500 firms from 2012 until 2022. Robustness checks and results from the 2SLS model further support the authors’ findings.

The results show that contingent liabilities negatively affect dividend payment decisions. This analysis further demonstrates that the stated effect of contingent liabilities on dividend decisions is more substantial for firms with financing deficits and those with above-industry-average corporate governance scores.

There needs to be more systematic conceptual reason for measuring uncertainty for firms and its influence on dividend decisions. Future research should use other measures of firm uncertainty to examine the relation of the firm's uncertainty with dividend decisions.

The authors suggest that contingent liabilities create uncertainty for future cash flows, influence a firm's agency costs and provide credible signals on a firm's prospects to the market. The findings support existing literature that measurable firm-specific variables significantly influence a firm's dividend decisions. The results are robust for an alternative explanation.

By investigating the impact of the influence of contingent liabilities on dividends, the authors extend research on dividend decisions and attempt to provide insights into a firm's dividend decisions by incorporating an off-the-balance sheet item (contingent liabilities) as a significant predictor for dividend decisions.

This paper reports the results of research that examines the interrelationships between efficacy of sustainability values (SV) and pro-sustainable behaviors of potential tourists. A partially mediated model is postulated and tested to help explain additional error variance in predicting consumers’ destination choice decisions in tourism, hence voiding a critical research gap. Coined as the “environmentally intellectualist behavior,” a new mediator variable is tested to explain additional error variance in human-value models.

The study is based on data collected from two representative samples of potential tourists from the USA and Canada. Data analyses include exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses that were used to examine the underlying domain structures of SV, followed by a predictive model using structural equation modeling.

The study findings suggest that values are salient factors that underlie pro-sustainable tourism and travel behavior. Moreover, the results confirm the existence of a higher-order sustainability construct. The study contributes original insights to the field by demonstrating that there are direct and indirect positive relationships between SV, environmental behaviors and decisions of consumers who take a pro-sustainable stance when traveling.

By modeling values as antecedents to attitudes and testing interrelationships between SV and the mediator variables coined as the environmentally intellectual behavior, the authors developed and tested a predictive model to explain destination- and product choice decisions. The model tested herein advances the value theory in two fundamental ways: first, this study demonstrates that SV can be modeled as higher-order factors. Second, values are antecedents to attitude and other variables, therefore must be included in consumer behavior models. Finally, the culture or origin of tourists matters when examining the impact of values on tourists’ choice decisions. Political actions and environmental attitudes can be modeled as mediators to explain additional error variance.

The goal of this paper is twofold: (1) to investigate how relatedness-supportive corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives influence brand happiness among retail bank customers through a mediating mechanism of customer participation in brand CSR movements; and (2) to analyze how relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives’ effect may be moderated by cause choice and customer-brand goal congruence.

Data were collected from 379 retail bank customers via a paper-and-pencil survey. The hypothesized moderated-mediation effects were tested using Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS (Model 3, Model 4 and Model 7).

Results show that relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives increase brand happiness among retail bank customers through increasing their participation in brand CSR movements. Furthermore, the use of customer determination in the choice of cause enhances the positive effect of relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives on customer participation in brand CSR movements. Similarly, when customers choose the cause and the customer-brand goal is congruent, the effect of relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives on brand happiness is stronger than when the customer-brand goal is incongruent and cause choice is not aligned.

This research is grounded on the relationship motivation theory (RMT), basic psychological needs theory and self-congruity theory to unpack the relationship between relatedness-supportive CSR programs on brand happiness. Integrating three research streams (i.e. CSR, brand management and retail banking), this study proposes customer participation in brand CSR movements as a novel mechanism and sheds light on how relatedness-supportive CSR interplays with cause choice/customer-brand goal congruence to affect brand happiness among retail bank customers in emerging markets.

Blockchain technology has created possibilities for environmental supply chain sustainability and climate protection. However, because of its early development stage, users tend to resist the adoption of this new technology. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of resistance on blockchain adoption intentions in the context of the foodservice industry. This study further explores if public pressures and climate change awareness could possibly weaken the negative relationships between blockchain resistance and adoption intentions.

Data were collected from managers and full-time employees in the foodservice industry, using an online research panel survey. A structural equation model was developed and tested to examine the hypothesized relationships. Additionally, a multi-group analysis was performed to test the moderating roles of public pressures and climate change awareness.

The findings from this study confirmed that foodservice employees’ characteristics, including traditional barriers, and blockchain technology factors, like perceived risk, are both significant in forming resistance to blockchain. This study also demonstrated the significant roles of internal and external stakeholders in weakening the negative associations between blockchain resistance and adoption intentions.

This study recommends that foodservice companies address how to reduce their employees’ negative perceptions about changes imposed by blockchain adoption. This study also suggests the joint consideration of the pressures from internal and external stakeholders to provide continued insights into developing environmental practices for the foodservice industry.

This study extends the theoretical underpinning of the innovation resistance theory by incorporating the stakeholder theory as a strong foundation for understanding how external pressures and internal awareness may influence foodservice employees’ responses to the implementation of blockchain technology to mitigate climate change.